Jug Bay Market Garden

Fresh Food / Farm to Family: Jug Bay Market Garden
This week’s feature is the Jug Bay Market Garden located in Croom, Maryland. Owned and operated by Scott Hertzberg and Tanya Tolchin, Jug Bay MG provides freshly picked, local produce to 85 families in Washington, DC (Capitol Hill) Upper Marlboro, Croom, and Brandywine areas. RuralBizBlog (RBB) interviewed Scott and Tanya on May 27, 2007.

RBB: What does a family get if it subscribes to your CSA (community supported agriculture)?

Scott: Our subscribers get 1 large shopping bag or carton filled with fresh produce each week. What we provide depends on the season – which runs from about May 15 to Halloween. We start off with spring veggies like spinach, lettuce, onions, peas, herbs and also strawberries. In June, we add squash, broccoli, and cabbage. By mid-summer we provide our customers tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, summer squash, corn, watermelons and cantaloupes. As we get into September, it’s back to the cooler weather crops – lettuce, kale, arugula, and winter squash. We also sell cut flowers and eggs separate from the regular subscription. We supply flowers for events like birthdays and anniversaries.

RBB: When you say freshly picked, what do you really mean?

Scott: Twelve to thirty-six hours.


RBB: Wow, I’ll bet the onions you get in the supermarket were picked weeks or even months ago. How do your subscribers get their food?

Scott: We have two distinct markets.There are the folks who live near Croom that come right to our farm and pick up their packages. For our Capitol Hill customers, we deliver to a church once a week.

RBB: How do you manage to grow all of this stuff?

Scott: We have several full time and several part time employees to pull it off. This enables us to grow most but not all of the food we provide. As our membership has increased over the past five years, we have been buying more and more produce from other local farmers.

RBB: Is all of the food you sell organic?

Scott: All of the food that we grow ourselves is organic. This year we've grown about 75 percent of what we sold. However, not all of the produce we buy from other farms is organic. We do let our subscribers know exactly what they are getting.

RBB: How do you feel about organic versus non-organic?

Scott: We ourselves like to grow our crops the organic way. However, an even greater core value is to support local farming. We see real value in building win-win relationships with other farmers, even if they are not currently organic.

Tanya: We also want to build relationships between consumers and local farmers and to give people a real appreciation for the real source of their food – the land rather than a supermarket freezer.

RBB: How do you do this?

Tanya: One great thing is that our customers in the greater Upper Marlboro / Croom area pick up their food right at our farm. Many like to look at our crop fields and ask a lot of questions. Our customers have told us how much they appreciate the farm-family connection, not to mention the taste of our fresh produce.

Scott: Having the pick up at our farm has another advantage – we save gas and time – two very valuable commodities for any farmer.

RBB: The first issue of RuralBizBlog (May 27, 2007) has an editorial supporting rural economies including farming. This editorial (shown below) “locally grown” is inherently more sustainable since its far less energy intensive than shipping apples or spinach from California or Chile. By the way, are you making a profit?

Scott: Well we’re not getting rich so far, but we are netting a profit. It varies from year to year depending on our equipment purchases. However, we have plans to expand the business – principally by buying more produce from other farmers in the area. Right now, we can’t meet the demand – it’s big now and keeps growing. We feel we are well-positioned for the near term future.

RBB: Well, what if I or readers want to join up? Is it too late for this summer?

Tanya: Our website says we are full. But we will take new local members if they are close enough to get to our farm for the weekly pick up. We just can’t add any more members in Washington this year.

RBB: So how do you sign up?

Tanya: You can visit our website Jug Bay Market Garden and call us at 301-627-6211.
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RBB: Thanks. This is terrific. You guys are true pioneers. We will do a follow-up after we taste the tomatoes and corn.

CSA Subscription Program.

CSA subscription program runs from late May thorugh late October. Members receive at least 20 weeks of seasonal vegetables, berries, and herbs. Weekly pickups are on SUnday afternoons at the farm and Monday evenings on Capitol Hill. On average, weekly shares will include around $25 worth of vegetables.

Shares Delievered to Capitol Hill: $570
Shares picked-up on the farm: $530

Jug Bay Market Garden Flower Subscription.

With a flower subscription, you will receive a fresh bouquet of flowers at the start of each week. The season runs from 14 weeks from the second week of June to the end of Septemeber.

Flower share if you are purchasing a vegetable subscription- $125.
Flower share alone- $150.

Golden Leaf Farm

Featured "rural-biz" of the week:

GOLDEN LEAF FARM, BRANDYWINE: land of honey & Wine

Golden Leaf Farm is a family owned and operated apiary and vineyard located in the quiet rural town of Brandywine, MD. Joseph Romano, Beekeeper, and his wife Jo-Ann have been producing pure, all-natural honey for six years. According to Jo-Ann, “We started with two hives producing honey for ourselves, family, and friends. We now manage eleven hives. Our honey is 100% pure, natural, Southern Maryland honey.” The honey is extracted from the hives, lightly filtered to remove any wax, and then bottled. “We do not pasteurize or pressure filter our honey so our customers get the most flavorful honey the bees have to offer.”“In the spring of 2007 we established a vineyard with the help of our daughters Tiffany and Tarah and our son-in-law James. We planted1200 wine grape vines consisting of 4 Hybrid and 2 Vinifera varieties and 32 table grape vines consisting of 7 varieties. As of April e24, 2007, we were fully established. Our 1200 vines were all in the ground. Our goal is to produce quality Maryland grown grapes to support Maryland wineries.

”This past August, Golden Leaf Farm became one of 13 farms in Southern Maryland to receive a Grape Growers grant from the Tri-County Council of Southern Maryland in partnership with the So Maryland So Good.

For more info contact JoAnn Romano 301-888-2227 or jromano@honeyhaven.net

EMERGING RURAL ECONONOMY

There is a remarkable opportunity in rural Southern Maryland to create a thriving and sustainable economy.

A large portion of Southern Maryland is rural and beautiful. But rural lands provide more than scenic landscapes. They protect watersheds, prevent floods, filter the groundwater and provide habitats for wildlife.They also provide outdoor recreation for millions of people in the rapidly growing Richmond-DC-Baltimore urban corridor.

However, these valuable assets are being threatened by the encroachment of subdivisions, shopping centers, gasonline stations, big box stores and malls. Though hard to see on a daily basis, the cumaltive impact of this growth over time is exacting a devastating toll, including:

• Shrinking natural systems which serve as critical buffers for the rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

• Increased flow of contaminants into these watersheds.

• Disappearance of wildlife habitat.

• Increasingly congested roads and longer commuting times (increased gas consumption)

• Safety and educational resources overwhelmed by growth.

Strategic food resource: our open lands. One of the most serious impacts gets little attention. Some of the most valuable agricultural land in the world is being paved over. Our region not only has good soils, but is blessed with a long growing season and ample rainfall. And the value of the land for food will increase; here's why:

• Consumer demand for fresh, locally-grown food is on the rise.

• Energy prices will continue to rise. (We are back to $3++/gallon gas) Thus, the cost of transportation, refrigeration, freezing, and processing will all increase. Apples and vegetables from the west coast (or further) will grow increasingly expensive. The same applies to cut flowers and nursery stock.

• The Washington- Baltimore urban corridor is one of the fastest growing in the nation. The demand for food will increase.

These trends will offer enormous opportunities for small and large alike. Even families with five and ten acre lots are getting into the game. One of them, the Golden Leaf Farm, featured below, is producing some of the tastiest honey around and has just started a new vineyard.

Our next issue will feature the Jug Bay Market Garden (www.jugbaymarketgarden.com) now supplying seasonal locally grown produce to more than 70 families on a weekly basis.

Multiplier Effect. Nor is food production the only rural business opportunity with growth potential. There is the "multiplier effect" -- i.e. the renewal of agriculture boosts the need for equipment, greenhouses, seed, and all the other things that farmers need. We also expect partnerships to develop bewteen supermarkets and local growers. And what about a beautiful farmers market in the town of Upper Marlboro (lots of empty parking lots on Saturday).

Recreation represents another major activity for Maryland's rural lands. Southern Maryland is already horse country with a host of wonderful horse stables and riding camps ( we will feature some of these in weeks). but there are no country inns or country restraunts to speak of. Hardly anyone canoes or kayaks on the Patuxent River. What a shame not to take advantage of our beautiful river. DC has a bunch of "duck-mobile" companies (amphibious vehicles that go on roads and rivers). We could have on that goes from Upper Marlboro to the Eastern Shore or to Solomon's Island.

Sustainability. The growing opportunites described above are inherently sustainable; they can be managed ecologically and can help to ensure that our children and grandchildren will be able to use and enjoy the rich natural, cultural and economic treasures that our rural tiers offer.